This is the 3rd book in Felicity’s Men of Honor series. The series, or at least the ones with Alice, have a very heavy Alice in Wonderland vibe. Doctored is an Alice book, and her partner is Dr. Oscar Hatton, who has a hat habit, and is also known as the Mad Hatter.
Here is a quick history of the story. The Men of Honor aren’t actually all that honorable. They are a huge crime network. Oscar is the doctor of the bunch, and he makes sure that everyone is as healthy as possible. Alice is an MI5 agent who was sent in to shut him down. Only Oscar and his buddy, the head of his group knew who she was when she came in, and they took her. And she became Oscar’s.
So, this one starts off some time after the first book, in which Alice was captured. She’s been the Mad Hatter’s captive, and he has kept her tied up, bound, gagged, and done all kinds of deliciously dirty things to her. She likes it, but she tries really hard not to, because she’s supposed to fight to get free of him, and she’s still trying to keep her eyes open for ways to escape, because as an MI5 agent, that’s what she’s supposed to do.
Oscar leaves her tied up, but she manages to get out, and is waiting for him when he comes back. She kicks the fuck out of him, and escapes his room, stark ass naked, whereupon the Cheshire cat helps her escape and she makes it back to MI5.
I like Alice. I do think that she has a real stubborn streak, and I think that is a good thing, at least part of the time. It has served her well in the past, and helped her get to where she is in MI5. But, I think that there are times that she isn’t helped much by the stubborn streak, but it is hard to turn that off. I do think that she also has a bit of a blind spot, at least when it comes to MI5. I want to say that she’s naïve, but I’m really not sure that naïve is the right word for it. But the flavor is there, at least.
Oscar doesn’t have the same issue, but I think that he has some blindness of his own. Or maybe some obliviousness. I think that it is going to be interesting to see what happens with him and Alice. I think there are going to be some really interesting things happening.
This is the 3rd of the Gates of Fortorus books. I don’t know if Felicity is leaving this world alone now that we’ve gotten through Her Dark Nemesis or not. I’m not sure if I want to be really mad at her if she is or to be satisfied with the ending of this one. The ending is a wow, for sure, and frankly, I think that I’m happy with either way that Felicity choose to go. Of course, that didn’t stop me from yelling “Damn you, Felicity!!!” when I got to the end. My husband has now gotten used to me yelling lke that during books and doesn’t even try to get me to explain anymore, which is good, because it’s hard to sometimes. As a reminder, there will likely be spoilers for the previous books. I’ll try to limit them, but because of the way that they are written, it’s hard.
So, Caroline has managed to get out of the Commander’s headquarters. Of course, it didn’t hurt that she beaned him with a decanter and she’s pretty sure that he’s dead. All she knows is that now is her big chance, and she’s not going to miss out on it. So, she grabs some of Harper’s clothes and leaves through the window. Since she’s been with him, she knows roughly how to get out of the grounds, so she heads that way. That’s when she discovers that she’s not the only person out there.
Caroline and her companion manage to get out of the Fortorous grounds and find a farm to hide on, with a sort of friendly farmer, who tells them where they are, and gives them some food. But, then come the guards, and things change. Caroline ends up back in the Commander’s quarters.
Meanwhile, while Caroline is out and about, running free, Harper has been found bloodied and unconscious on the floor of his quarters. His private doctor comes and helps him out, and tells him that he needs to get checked out better, but there’s just one smalll problem. Or more like one huge problem. The President is about to show up and Harper doesn’t want him to know that anyone has escaped, let alone Caroline. It would be a huge problem, altogether, and it would just make the President even more paranoid and crazy, which yeah. Luckily, for Harper at least, they are able to capture Caroline and bring her back.
There are incels, and then there is this douchebag. I mean the President is basically the Incel King. The only way that he’s getting any play right now is because he can force women into it, literally. I mean, the women just have no choice. I don’t think that there is anyone who is going to orchestrate a takeover like the one described here, but I guarantee that there are men in the world who would be more than happy to do everything that the asshat is doing in this book, without a qualm. Ugh. I really want to use some KGB-esque poisoning methods on him. (Dear FBI, please understand that I’m only talking about the douchebag president in this book and I would never, ever hurt President Biden.)
Caroline still has all the fire and spunk that she has had in the previous two books. I think it’s going to take a lot of work for that to go away. She is still torn between the different parts of herself, and I still understand why. She really is in an unteneable situation, and it’s not something that I can ever even imagine what I’d do in her place. I mean, I’d like to assume that I’d be like Caroline and fiesty, because well, I am fiesty and I have a small issue with authority, but until you are in her shoes, you just can’t know. I just have one question for Felicity though. So many of her heroines are writers. Are we seeing some serious fantasy here? LOL.
Harper. Well. I can’t go into what I’m feeling abaout him right now without getting into serious spoilers. Let’s just say that the things I like about him are still there.
Oh, I don’t even know what I should put here. I know what I want to put where, but that would be more spoilers than I ever put anywhere. Let’s just say that I’m still stunned by the end.
OK, that’s all for this one. Go check it out! Happy reading!
OK, we’re talking about the second book in Felicity’s Gates of Fortorus series, His Dark Intentions. This is the middle book of the trilogy and it is a cliffhanger because Felicity is mean. So mean. There may be spoilers for the first book in this review. We all know that I try hard not to leave spoilers, but sometimes it isn’t possible to do.
So, we left Caroline with Harper. He is using her for all her talents and charms. And now they are winging their way to London so that Harper can give the speech that Caroline wrote for him in front of the President and the rest of his cronies. And of course, he wants Caroline to be there with him. He can’t leave her alone. He’s pretty obsessed with her, and he wants to have his wicked and dark way with her whenever and wherever. So, she comes with him.
They make it to the office where the President is as well as all his other men. The president wants to play with Caroline, but Harper makes it quite obvious that she is his and no one else is going to touch her. After he gives the speech, the men talk about other things, but since no women, or whores, are allowed, Harper locks Caroline in a cage in a secret room, with three other women. That gives Caroline a chance to talk to some other women and gives her a little time to think and worry about what will happen when the men come back to get them. Harper says that no one will touch her, but she saw how the president looked at her. And her instincts are really good right now.
OK. I really feel Caroline’s confusion and turmoil. She likes what Harper is doing to her, even as it makes her feel ashamed and humiliated. Humiliation play is a thing. She feels the connection that she and Harper have. But, on the other hand, Harper is the Commander General of Fortorus, where 32k women are being kept in terrible conditions, raped, beaten, and dying. He’s in the inner circle of the man who has orchestrated all of this and who has even more plans in his head. There are terrible things going on to women in general, they are being silenced and owned, and Harper is part of that. So she feels angry about that. She keeps pushing everything down. She knows that being with Harper, no matter what’s happening, is better than being a general prisoner at Fortorus. And she wants to escape, so this puts her in a good place to do that.
Felicity writes these amazing male characters that you either want to love or hate or both at the same time. That’s how I feel about Harper. Well, I’m not sure that I want to love him at the moment. I know that I want to hate him. There are times when I can almost see him improving and something breaking through, but then it disappears and I’m back to straight up hate. But I like hating him, if you get what I mean. He’s magnetic, and I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen next with him.
With the ending that Felicity gave us, I can’t wait to see what the next book is going to bring us. I know that it’s going to be be good, and I will be on edge the whole time I read it.
Nothing under the picture today. Go check it out! Happy reading!
Happy New Year’s Eve! It’s 7.5 hours until 2020 ends where I’m at, and I’m wondering what other things it can shove into those last few hours. Hopefully nothing, but you know what this year has been like. But, let’s forget about that for a while and focus on the 810 books I’ve read this year. Today’s post is the first part of the darkest reads I’ve read this year. Some of them I put on my blog, some were just pleasure reads, so let’s get started, shall we? Now, remember, these are in no particular order.
This is the first book in Felicity’s Gates of Fortorus series. (my post) The second book has just come out, and it will be on the blog in the next couple of days. This is a dark, dystopian, near future story. It is really gritty, dark, and dirty. It’s the story of Caroline, an author who was taken into Fortorus, along with thousands of other British women. They are mistreated and tortured, and it’s just not good. But the book was great. Definitely go check this one out.
This is an MM book. It’s part of the Grim and Sinister Delights book, which is a multi-author PNR series. It isn’t a shared world so much as it’s a shared theme series, around fairy tales. In this book, we have a male siren and a wolf shifter. Domino is the siren, and as a male siren, his family wants to fuck him, get bred by him, and then kill him so that they can get the magic from his bits and pieces. As you might guess, Domino isn’t down with that, so he’s run. Jude is a bounty hunter who is on the search for Domino. When they meet, everything starts to get cloudy. There are some really intense scenes in this book, and I honestly didn’t know what was going to happen sometimes.
So far, this is only a 2 book series, and the ends are cliffies. I know that book 3 is in the works, but apparently, Spider is an asshole with his authors too. I follow Raven so that I know when things drop. The first book is Evil’s Price, and the second is Evil’s Pawn. The premise of the series is that Emma, who is escaping from a religious cult, has ended up working as a waitress at a strip club owned by the Devil’s Outlaw MC. She ends up stealing from the club, and Spider, as the Sgt-at-arms, is tasked with dealing with her. Let’s just say that Spider’s way of dealing with her issn’t all that nice. When I say that he is an asshole, I’m being generous. I hate him. I also am oddly fascinated by him. When the 2nd book came out, I literally put the book I was reading on hold until I read Pawn. And I read it until late into the night.
False Feathers is part of the Grim and Sinister Delights books. This one is based on the Goose Girl. It starts with Aiden, whose mother has arranged a marriage for him. Not just a marriage, but one to a fae prince. She sends him off with a servant, and well, bad things happen. Adara Wolf writes a lot of dark, dub/non con MM, and her books are always intense and always stay with me. This one was no different.
OK, that’s all for this one. Check in tomorrow for part 2 of my Top Dark Reads of 2020!
OK, you might have noticed that I like dark, dystopian stories. There’s just something about the dark, grittiness of it all. One of my favorite stories in that genre is The Handmaid’s Tale. Spoiler, it’s also one of the scariest stories I’ve ever read, hands down. So, when I read the blurb for Felicity’s Her Dark Protector, I was really fucking excited. It sounded really awesome. And I was not wrong. And it does give me the same kind of feel that Handmaid does. It’s not that Felicity copied it or anything, but it’s the same vibe, and I think that’s great.
So, we are in near future England. In September, 2024, something called the Edict was passed. The Edict basically turned all the female citizens of the UK into non-citizens. And even more, it basically turned them into property. Women lost all their credentials, jobs, everything. Women have been pulled away from their families, husbands, children. Some women have even been killed. It’s not good. Not good at all. Many, many women have ended up in Fortorus, which means for the brave. But what it really should mean is hell. Because that is what it is. This is the story of Caroline, who is one of the women who was taken to Fortorus.
Caroline was a novelist before E-day. Now she’s just one of the women who live in Gamma block of Forotorus. They are supervised by a man named Mitchell, who is just disgusting. He calls them whores and treats them terribly. The women sleep on filthy mattresses, don’t have enough clothing, don’t have enough food, aren’t able to shower, aren’t warm enough, have to stand outside daily in all kinds of weather, and get physically disciplined. And oh, the women also have to deal with whatever Mitchell wants to do to them, and it ain’t pretty. All in all, the women aren’t really living, they are existing, and just barely at that.
Fern, who is another woman in Gamma, has become Caroline’s friend. One morning, Mitchell decides that Fern is the victim of the day. He drags her away to his office. Then later, when the women are all standing in parade outside, waiting for the Commander General to show up, not that he ever does, Fern gets dragged outside, and then put up on the whipping pole, where she gets whipped 6 times. This isn’t, you know, a consensual kind of whipping. It’s a “I hate you and am going to do everything I can to hurt and damage you” kind of whipping. And that’s what happened. Then they leave her hanging there. Eventually, she gets brought back into the building where they live, but Fern has to spend the rest of the day working, with wide open wounds on her back. After dark, Caroline volunteers to go to another building, all the way across the compound, to hopefully get some first aid cream that can help Fern. The worry is that she’ll get caught, and that will be epically bad.
And of course, you can guess what happens. Because it would probably be a really short book if Caroline doesn’t get caught out of bounds. She does, and things happen.
Caroline is such a fascinating character, and I think that she is a very realistic one. She is very much fighting with herself over what she thinks she should do, what she can do, and what she will do. I think that’s a position we would all be in, and we can’t say what we would do in her situation. I mean, there’s just no way to predict what anyone is going to do at any point. I would like to say that I would smash the shit out of Mitchell when he came to take Fern if I were Caroline, but, you know, I can’t say I would, especially since I would be so outmanned, outgunned, and outplanned, boom. (Sorry, I’ve watched Hamilton like 3 times this week.) But, as much as Caroline wants to protect her friends and get her own back, self-preservation is a thing to. It’s your brain’s instinct to protect yourself, which means you actually have to fight against your own instincts in order to put yourself at risk. And, in Caroline’s place, fighting Mitchell would end up doing nothing, really, because Fern would still get dragged away and hurt, and may even have gotten hurt worse. And Caroline would’ve gotten hurt, just as badly.
So, is Caroline doing the right thing by standing by and taking care of Fern when she gets back, or should she be fighting, or what? What even is the right thing here? This is what makes the story for me, that struggle that takes place within Caroline. Don’t get me wrong, all the external struggle that happens is great, and there’s some seriously sexy stuff that happens, but it’s all that internal struggle that Caroline has that really drives it for me. And honestly? I don’t think that is an answer as to what the right thing to do is. I sure as hell don’t know one.
I’m really looking forward to the next one. I have so many questions that I want answers to.
Nothing below the pic today. Go check this one out! Happy reading!
Today we have the 3rd book in Felicity’s Demonolgy series, Curse Me. This is the story of Lucien and Penny.
Penny is a successful author who has made beaucoup bucks writing romances. But it’s been a minute since she finished anything. Her ex left her, and since then, her life has kind of just fallen apart. She can’t really write, and she’s basically living in front of her computer and in her bedroom. Just trying to get anything written is really hard on her, and she keeps sinking deeper and deeper into despair and depression. Then comes the day when a patch of darkness talks to her.
That patch of darkness is, of course, Lucien, a pride demon. He’s been watching Penny for a while now, and he’s decided to take her. And take her he does. He takes her to a dark basement, strips her, chains her up, and tells her that she’s going to write for him. No matter what she might want, she’s going to write, and he’s going to help her. Of course, his help may come at the end of a lash and he may tell her that she has to call him Master, but he’ll help.
It took me longer to warm up to Lucien than it did for Raif and Solomon. I’m not entirely sure why, but I think that Lucien was more distant and colder than the other demons were. I mean, he’s demonic, so of course, he’s got a whole demon thing going on, but he’s just different than the other guys. The other demons seemed to warm up to their mortals faster than Lucien too.
Penny is also a lot more stubborn than the other ladies were. She wanted what was going on, but she didn’t want to want it. She thought that it was dirty and wrong, so she really worked hard at fighting off Lucien. I kind of respect her for that.
I’m really looking forward to the book with Satan in it, because I think that it’s going to be really good, and I’m really hoping it’s next.
I wonder if Lucien is going to bind himself to Penny, because we didn’t seen any sign of it in this book, so, I dunno.
OK, that’s all for this one. Go check it out! Happy reading!
Defy Me is the second book in Felicity’s Demonology series. This book is about Solomon and Tara and concern one of my more favorite sins, wrath.
Tara is full of righteous wrath. She has been used and abused by men all her life, starting with her stepfather, Gavin. She hates him with a passion, which I don’t blame her. She wants her vengenance, and she wants it badly. So, she’s decided that she’s going to call upon the supernatural to get some help. After doing some research, she’s found out about Solomon, a demon of wrath. She calls upon him to help her give Gavin eactly what he deserves. She’s willing to do anything and give him anything he wants.
Solomon is drawn to his little human, and he’s fascinated by her and what she wants. He can see in her head and memories, and he can see what has happened to her, everything that has happened to her. And he can also see that she’s not afraid of death or of giving him her soul. She’s completely and totally willing to do that. These things fascinate him, and she fascinates him, and he wants to give her the vengenance that she wants.
Solomon takes Tara to a little area of his own, and does many wonderfully terrible things to her. And she’s not complaining, not one little bit.
I like Tara. She started out feeling really beat down, but she was able to get beyond that. She had some ideas as to what she wanted to happen to Gavin, but with Solomon’s help, she was able to surpass them and come up with new ideas. I really liked seeing her blossom with Solomon.
Solomon may have been all about wrath and vengenance, but I like how he really seems to care about Tara. It seems like it is more than just the whole I’m a demon who now owns this human soul. It’s more like I’m Solomon, she’s Tara, and she’s mine, no two ways about it. I know that it might seem like there’s not a whole lot of difference in there, but there is. It’s a nuanced difference, and you will definitely see it when you read the book.
So, OK, the Guardian. We keep getting teased by that, I can’t wait to find out what’s going on with that. I keep thinking the following book will be that story, but it isn’t, and it’s making me quite impatient, in a good way.
Well, if you are looking for some sacrilege with your hot and steamy reading, then Dare Me is perfect for you. It’s the first book in a new series, and I think that the second book is going to be not about the being I thought it would be about, so I’ll have to see there. I’m sure that if the person I thought it was going to be isn’t the main character in the second book, then he might be in the 3rd one. So, we’ll see, won’t we?
So, we start with Sara. She is definitely the very definition of starving artist. She is barely making it at all, her paintings are doing badly, and her asshole landlord wants to get up close and personal with her, a lot more up and close and personal than she wants him to be. In fact, he’s trying to force himself into her apartment, and she’s trying to keep him out. She’s barely managing when all of a sudden, she gets all kinds of strength, making it possible for her to shove the door shut on him and tell him to get the fuck out and leave her the fuck alone. But, how did she manage that?
Well, that would be because of Raif. He’s been formlessly watching over her for quite a while. She doesn’t know that he is, because when I say formlessly, I mean it. He is a demon and he’s just been manifesting enough to have his energy floating around her apartment, but not so much that she can see him. Then when the asshole landlord showed up, he basically possessed Sara enough that he could lend her strength. He was really excited to be inside her, and well, that’s not the only way that he got inside her, if’n you know what I mean.
At first, I thought that Sara was weak, but after reading a little bit, I decided that she really isn’t. I think that she has a very strong core and that’s what keeps her going. It also is what helps her to bend in the ways that Raif wants her too. She’s less like an oak and more like a willow. Still strong, just a different kind of strong. I think that she also ends up going into things with her eyes wide open, at least at certain points.
Raif, well, he is a demon, but he has a really interesting journey. I think that maybe Sara transforms him in certain ways the same way that he transforms her. I think that he really had to have her.
I’m looking forward to finding out more about the Guardians.
OK, that’s all for today. Go check it out! Happy reading!
Daddy’s Game is the last book in Jared and Sophie’s story. And I have to say, I totally adore what Felicity has done with their story and their ending. It really satisfied me in all the good ways. As this is the 3rd book in the trio, there is likely to be some spoilers. I will always try not to spoil anything, but you know it is, especially with how Felicity writes her books, where the action picks up in the new book exactly where the action ended in the last book.
So, we have Sophie trying to escape from Jared. She wants to get to her children, Billy and Lucy. When Jared stole her away, he took her from them, and she couldn’t get him to understand that she had to be with her kids. But, her escape attempt didn’t work. Jared caught her, and brought her back. And, as you might guess, Jared wasn’t best pleased that she had tried to get away from him. After all, everything he’s done has been for her, and he loves her.
So, Jared brings her home, and punishes her, because she didn’t listen. She tried to leave her Daddy’s safety, and she didn’t obey. All those things are bad things, and all those things make Jared unhappy. And making Jared unhappy is a very bad thing. Sophie finds that out because he uses some ginger on her and spanks her.
OK, here’s my thoughts on Jared. No, I still don’t like him. I think that he’s completely fucked up and his cheese done slipped cracker, left the kitchen, and is outside on the porch. I don’t think that he actually knows anything about love. I think he knows about obsession. I think he knows about possession. But love? No. He could probably find the word in the dictionary and read it, but I’m pretty sure that he wouldn’t understand it. He does understand fucking with people’s minds. He understands that part real well. He messes with Sophie’s mind so much. I think that’s his true goal. Yeah, he wants to own her entire body, but it’s more that he wants to own everything about her, especially her mind. And he’s willing to twist everything around her so that he can get into her head. I mean, he wants to get her submission, and I think that the only way he might totally get her submission is to twist her brain around so hard.
Sophie is incredibly strong, stubborn, and singleminded. She wants her kids, which means that she needs to get away from Jared. Her body may like some of what Jared is doing, but her mind doesn’t. She doesn’t want this. She tells him, but he doesn’t listen to her, not at all. So, after one unsuccessful escape attempt, she knows that she’s going to have to take her time and figure out what she needs to do. And not only is she going to have to figure out what to do, she’s also going to need to try not to actually lose herself while she’s doing it. I think that’s the hardest thing that Sophi has to do. It’s not to escape, which isn’t going to be easy. It’s going to be having to fight off Jared’s games while still looking like she’s playing his game and giving him what he wants.
I really loved this series. I loved being able to hate Jared. I kinda disliked Sophie at times, but I have to really admire her strength and determination. There’s a lot of grit in there, and I think that even with the short amount of time she was with Jared, that he knocked some of the stuff that hid that grit and made her stronger. I really like her in this one.
I can’t even say how much I love the ending of this. I think that Jared learned some things that he needed to learn.
OK, that’s all I have to say about this one. Go check it out! Happy reading!
Countered is the second book in Felicity’s Rule of Lawes series. For those who may have forgotten which series that is, it’s the perverted dentists. I do just want to point out that I may or may not (definitely may) have the ARC for the last book in Felicity’s dark Daddy books. I can’t wait to find out what happens with Jared. But for now, let’s get back to Hannah, April, Mr. Fuller, and Mr. Lawes. Warning, there are likely to be spoilers for the first book. You know that I’ll try to not put any, but I make no guarantees.
So, we have Hannah, who tried her damnedest to escape, and we have April, who inadvertently gave Hannah her chance. Only, they are both recaptured and they are punished for their actions. Hannah’s is relatively mild, but only relatively. After all, she’s brand new, so she was only locked in a pillory and introduced to a paddle. But April, who is one of the first women they took, is stubborn AF. She’s been trying to escape since they took her and she’s been fighting them at every damn turn. She refuses to let them win, and she’s going to do everything she can to fight. Which, as you can guess, doesn’t really endear her to Lawes and Fuller.
I like April. I really like her stubbornness and the fierceness with which she fights to try and get her freedom. Not only her freedom, but also the freedom of the 10 other women who are trapped there with her. Until Hannah showed up, April was the only person fighting, but now the two of them are going to plot and plan together. The two of them are going to be great partners, I think.
There’s just something about Fuller and Lawes. Don’t get me wrong, they are definitely monsters, so I’m not saying that they aren’t, but there’s just something about them. I dunno, it feels like there is some humanity deep down there somewhere. It feels like maybe they could have some actual emotions. I don’t know. Were going to have to see what happens, I guess.
I think that this one was more intense than the first book was. We see more of the inner workings of the place, and we get to know the women more, so we’re more invested. We don’t get any looks into Lawes or Fuller’s heads. We only see through April and Hannah, and I like that. I think that seeing through either Lawes or Fuller’s eyes things may have been watered down some. I think that it would’ve taken away some of the aspect of the whole what’s going to happen next mindfuck that happens in this book. I like that aspect in this book.
I can’t wait until we get the next one.
April’s punishment is just… wow.
OK, that’s all I have to say today. Go check it out! Happy reading!
In Between the Pages 